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Essen,

22

June

2017

|

13:37

Europe/Amsterdam

RWE plans one-off special dividend of 1 euro per share

The Executive Board of RWE AG plans to pay its shareholders a one-off special dividend of 1 euro per share in connection with the reimbursement of the nuclear fuel tax. The backdrop to these deliberations, which were discussed with the Supervisory Board today, was the notification by the German Constitutional Court of 7 June stating that the fuel tax was not compliant with the provisions of German constitutional law and declared null and void retroactively. The reimbursement of the tax amounts to approximately €1.7 billion for RWE. Rolf Martin Schmitz, CEO RWE AG, emphasises, “We are aware that we asked a lot of our shareholders by suspending the dividend on common shares in the last two years. We feel it is both fair and appropriate to distribute part of the tax refund among our shareholders.”

The payment of the one-off special dividend is to be proposed to the Annual General Meeting on 26 April 2018 in connection with the adoption of the financial statements for fiscal 2017. It is envisaged to pay the special dividend on top of the envisaged dividend for fiscal 2017 of 50 euro cents. Based on the 614.7 million RWE shares including 39 million preferred shares, the planned special dividend payment will amount to approximately 615 million euros. “We intend to use the predominant part of the tax reimbursement to improve our company’s financial strength,” says RWE CFO Markus Krebber.

The tax refund will not affect the company’s operating earnings forecast, as it will be recognised in the non-operating result. The tax had been levied since 2011 and expired on 31 December 2016.